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Maggie Jordan
|last = |only = |total = 25 appearances }}Maggie Jordan is an associate producer of News Night. Biography Maggie is of Dutch descent. Jordan starts as a News Night intern and later Will McAvoy's assistant. Upon her arrival, MacKenzie McHale immediately promotes Maggie to associate producer because of Mac's appreciation for loyalty. Season 1 ''News Night'' Loyalty to Will McAvoy She is one of the staff members who chooses to remain with anchor Will McAvoy after he embarrasses himself with a rant during a college question and answer session. Maggie's boyfriend, Executive Producer Don Keefer, and the majority of the staff choose to move to the 22:00 program. Don tries to convince Margaret to leave the program with him but she insists on remaining loyal to Will. Deepwater Horizon oil spill On April 20, 2010 news broke of an explosion at the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig. New senior producer Jim Harper championed the importance of the story over protests from Don and convinced Will to focus the show on the situation. Will interviewed three people from the companies involved with the situation, skillfully questioning them and successfully painting a picture of how serious the spill was. During the broadcast, Maggie uncovered some damning information about the Minerals Management Service and got a junior inspector on the line who had last inspected the Deepwater Horizon well. This interview exposed the fact that the MMS was underfunded and did not have the manpower to adequately inspect all wells. After the show ended, Will was applauded by the staff including Maggie. News Night 2.0 Unhappy with the way ACN and News Night was covering the news, Mac proposed "News Night 2.0", a complete overhaul of the way the news was covered based on three "I"s: 1) Is this information we need in the voting booth? 2) Is this the best possible form of the argument? 3) Is the story in historical context? Mac and Jim Harper present a segment about the immigration bill in Arizona and their intentions to bring on an expert and the Governor of Arizona to debate the bill. Jim approaches Maggie Jordan to practice her pre-interview with the Governor's press aide. Maggie protests the supervision and during the practice interview she shows Jim her passion for the subject and impresses him enough for him to let her do the pre-interview on her own. Jim finds out that Maggie blew the interview with the Governor's press aide. Maggie admits that she briefly dated the press aide in college. It ended embarrassingly and she mistakenly kept if from Jim. They call an emergency meeting to find a replacement guest for the show. Unable to find a suitable replacement they get three highly unqualified guests for that evening's broadcast. Everyone is afraid to tell Will for fear of being fired. Mac again tries to defend Will and convince everyone that he's a good man. Frustrated she sends an email asking Will if she can reveal to everyone that she cheated on him. However, due to the new email system she sends it to the entire staff. Will is furious and then apoplectic when he finds out about the night's replacement guests. Maggie offers to resign for her mistake and the disastrous segment; Will tells her that despite her mistake he hopes that she stays. The broadcast is predictably calamitous and the mistakes are compounded by Will refusing to listen to Mac's instructions during the show. The staff licks their wounds at a karaoke bar after the broadcast. Don Keefer comes in and criticizes Maggie and they have a fight. Maggie then yells at Jim for covering for her in the meeting. After comforting Maggie for her mistake Jim reprimands the rest of their staff. On air apology Will decides to issue an on air apology for his failings as anchor of News Night following the disastrous broadcast. He recruits Maggie to help him to craft the speech, alongside Neal Sampat, Jim Harper, and MacKenzie McHale. Maggie works on the speech without discussing it with Don because it was marked for her eyes only. The apology aired at the opening of the show on Monday, April 26, 2010. Times Square bombing attempt On Saturday, May 1, 2010 a bombing attempt in Times Square, New York City is defused without casualties after street vendors report a smoking vehicle to the police. On Monday, May 3, 2010 the perpetrator Faisal Shahzad is arrested at John F. Kennedy airport. At a News Night staff meeting on Tuesday, May 4, 2010, they decide not to criticize the system which successfully caught the would be terrorist bomber when he was boarding the plane. Despite the failure of the airline to update their files in time to recognize that he had been added to a no fly list a second line of checks by Customs and Border Protection led to his successful arrest and Jim characterizes this as the system working. They agree to cover the story in just 3 minutes at the opening of their program and not to sensationalize the arrest or the religious beliefs of Shahzad. Maggie brings up international coverage of the story during the meeting and explains that while t-shirt vendor Lance Orton contacted the police it was a Senegalese Muslim immigrant who first noticed the smoking vehicle. He asked Orton to contact the authorities because he was concerned but did not want his poor English to garble the message. Maggie successfully argues that if the religion of the bomber is relevant then so is the religion of the man that saved hundreds of lives. News Night is one of the few American networks to report that the danger was first recognized by the Muslim street vendor. Maggie is increasingly troubled by anxiety and suffers panic attacks at work when her medication is stolen by her roommates boyfriend. Jim uses his experience of anxiety among combat troops to calm her down. Maggie continues to have a fractious relationship with Don. The 112th Congress elections News Night focuses a portion of its coverage on the Tea Party and their views, funding and co-opting of the Republican Party. The incisive coverage culminates with a live broadcast in November 2010 on the day of the 112th Congressional elections where the Tea Party win many seats. End of 2010 At the News Night New Year's Eve party on December 31, 2010 Jim spends the evening looking for stories that the show might have missed during the year. Neal is trying to convince him (and everyone else) to run a story on the true existence of Bigfoot. Maggie comes over to help Jim and try to convince him to join the party. Their work is cut short when Don arrives at the party and announces that he intends to set Jim up with Maggie's roommate Lisa. The staff meet the next day and decide to pursue stories about misrepresentation; particularly of both The President's gun control record and his diplomatic trip to India. Mac is frustrated when Will's philandering earns him gossip column inches. Lisa anxiously prepares for a date with Jim. Despite her own feelings for Jim, Maggie calms Lisa and convinces her that she should go. Jim and Lisa's date goes well and he agrees to see her again. He lies to Maggie and says that they will not be going out again. Don tells Maggie that Jim and Lisa are going on a second date despite Jim's claims to the contrary. Don tricks Maggie into calling Jim and then calls Lisa's phone. Maggie hears Lisa's Rod Stewart ringtone in the background, and realizes that she is sleeping with Jim. Gabrielle Giffords shooting On Saturday January 8, 2011 Neal assembles the staff to pitch his Bigfoot story. Maggie and Jim argue in front of the staff over Jim's lie. Jim punishes Maggie's insubordination by putting her on the assignment desk for the day. Charlie calls Will in to discuss the gossip stories about him. Maggie breaks up the meeting to announce the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords. During the show's coverage, a false report spreads on Fox, CNN and MSNBC that the Congresswoman is dead. Reese Lansing charges into the studio to convince Will to report her death but Will refuses. Moments later reports that she is alive and in surgery are confirmed. February 2011 News Night covers civil unrest in Cairo after the Egyptian president refuses to leave his post despite losing the election. Elliot Hirsch travels to Cairo to report from the scene but is forced to remain inside when riots break out. Don is disappointed that Elliot is not out in the middle of things. Maggie catches wind of a new story during the broadcast; a protest in Wisconsin that is condemning the governor's plan to balance the budget at the detriment of teachers and other public sector union employees. Mac agrees to cover both and Maggie and Jim scramble to prepare footage for the segments. Maggie clumsily shuts a door in Jim's face, injuring him. She later helps to clean up the laceration. After the show, Mac chairs a staff meeting where a new story about the Koch brothers is discussed. They have linked their involvement with Citizens United to a plan to eventually abolish workers unions. Neal raises the idea of using a stringer in Cairo to get better coverage, having already established contact with someone using the alias "Amen". Don gets word that Elliot went out into the riots and was attacked. Elliot is battered but alive, and on his way back to the USA. Jim applauds when Elliot is later welcomed back to the newsroom. Maggie gives Jim a set of instructions to ensure that he gives Lisa a good Valentine's Day. Neal loses contact with Amen and fears that something has happened to him. The staff struggle to locate Amen while also prepping their next show. Neal discovers that Amen is in Egyptian military custody and that they are demanding an extortionate ransom. The broadcast covers the teacher's protest in depth. Lisa comes into the office, furious that Jim forgot about their date and stood her up. Maggie admits that she tried to arrange it and Jim apologizes. Will pays for Amen's release. Mac arranges for the staff to each give Will a cheque to contribute, mimicking a scene from one of Will's favorite films, Rudy. May 2011 Mac has Jim and Maggie conduct "opposition research" about Will in advance of a sexual harassment complaint hearing. Maggie tells Jim that the complaint is about Will shouting at her for making a mistake, and that she does not feel it was sexual harassment. Their research uncovers very little, except that Will had a job offer to host a talk show for Fox just before he discovered Mac was cheating on him. Will conducts a disastrous interview with Sutton Wall, the homosexual former Deputy Chief of Staff to Senator Rick Santorum. He ends the show by reading out website comments lauding Will's attack on Wall. Will is chagrined and decides to introduce a registration policy for website comments to remove the safety of anonymity from commenters. Will interviews Phylis Greer about the building of a Muslim community centre at Ground Zero in New York. This is quickly followed by Will receiving a death threat from someone who has hacked into the site. Greer, and the hacker, were vehemently against the idea. The threat causes Will's insurance company to insist on Lonny Church guarding him. Season 2 Season 2 takes place in 2012, a lawyer is interviewing all of the people involved in uncovering something the audience is introduced as Operation Genoa. There has been a mistake made by News Night which could lead to everyone's termination. Maggie walks in during Will's deposition during the first episode, appearing with short, uneven red hair and looking frazzled. The litigator, Rebecca Halliday, asks what is wrong with her. Will tries to tell her nothing, but Halliday is prepared with photos of Maggie from a year previous. Will explains to the lawyers that Maggie had been through something in Africa which has shaken her, but the audience doesn't know what it is. ''First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All The Lawyers'' In the first episode, we are taken back to two weeks following the first season finale in 2011. Maggie has been living with Don for the two weeks and all seems to be going well between them. Jim and Maggie have been unable to get past her rejection of him, prompting Jim to replace the press agent following Mitt Romney during his presidential campaign. Don returns home late in the episode, explaining that he is going to stay at a hotel while Maggie finds a new place to live. Maggie is confused about why he suddenly wants to end their relationship when it is going so well, but Don explains he received a link from her cousin. Maggie was recorded while she was yelling at the Sex and the City tour bus about her feelings for Jim by a passenger and the video was uploaded to YouTube. The episode ends with Maggie waiting outside the deposition room with Mackenzie. The Genoa Tip We begin this episode with Sloan catching Maggie sleeping on the floor, Maggie being too afraid to face Lisa until she can get the YouTube video of her yelling at the Sex and the City bus taken down. Sloan helps Maggie locate the video uploader, a woman who writes a Sex and the City blog and she agrees to take the video down when Sloan boosts the blog. Meanwhile Maggie tries to advance her career by suggesting to Mackenzie a story involving Africa. Mackenzie shoots her down and tells her to come up with something more specific. She calls Jim, who is on the campaign trail, to ask his advice, but he is not helpful. Maggie returns to the apartment she now shares with Lisa, but Lisa is waiting for her and she is angry. The video uploader put the video back online and Lisa, who is a big fan of the Sex and the City blog, has seen it. She asks Maggie for the details of that night which were not on the video and Maggie confesses everything, including the kiss between her and Jim. Lisa wants to kick her out, but knows she can not afford their apartment alone and agrees to continue living together with her as the landlord and Maggie as the tenant. Lisa also ends her relationship with Jim via email. Maggie returns to work and pitches an Africa story to Mac with a national security angle. Maggie comes into the meeting prepared with all the necessary facts and knowledge; this impresses Mac and she signs off for Maggie and Gary Cooper to go to Kampala, Uganda. When Maggie goes to tell Gary the news, he tells her about a deadly attack that has happened there. Maggie, wanting to become Mackenzie's go to person for international stories, asks Gary to keep it a secret from her so they can still go. Willie Pete Maggie is preparing for her trip to Uganda, including getting the necessary vaccinations and medications. Mac had advised her to get a particular type of the vaccination because the other one has harsher side effects; Maggie takes the other one. She becomes a nervous wreck as she worries about the side effects which range from nausea to hallucinations. Once she is able to calm down, she discovers that she has been cleared to leave on her journey. Mac hands her a 100 dollar bill saying she should either come back with it or the story of what happened to it. ''Unintended Consequences'' The episode opens with Maggie in the deposition room with the lawyers in 2012 who are trying to work out her state of mind. Maggie insists that she is fine and that she is coherent enough to testify about Operation Genoa. The lawyers insist she discuss what happened in Africa. Flashback to 2011, Gary and Maggie arrive in Uganda. In order to learn more about the operating base in Uganda, they agree to do a human interest story about soldiers working to improve conditions at an orphanage. Maggie enters first and she begins talking with the children, but when Gary enters, the children are immediately frightened, thinking that the camera he is carrying is a gun. Once everyone has calmed down, Maggie and Gary begin talking with the man looking after the children. Maggie is drawn to a little boy, Daniel, who is sitting alone eating lunch. She walks over to him and offers to read him a story from the book he is holding. She tells the lawyer that she only read to him three times, but she continuous read to him for hours. The little boy strokes Maggie's hair, having never seen the color of blonde hair before. When it starts getting late, they try to board the truck to go back to their hotel, but the soldier tells him they do not travel after dark in order to avoid what they call cattle raiders, men who steal cattle and kill anyone who tries to stop them. So Maggie and Gary stay the night at the orphanage. In the late hours of the night, Maggie and Gary are awoken by gunfire. They hear shouting, but it is in a language no one in the tent speaks. Everyone rushes to make sure the children get on the bus to get away from the cattle raiders. When Maggie and Gary make it to the bus, they notice Daniel is missing. They go back inside and find him hiding underneath a bed that is barely off the ground and bolted to the floor. Gary helps Maggie move the bed and get Daniel out from underneath. Maggie puts Daniel on her back and they run outside. The cattle raiders keep shouting in the unknown language as they run. They are at the door of the bus when Gary trips and the camera falls to the ground. Maggie turns around just as a shot is fired. They finish entering the bus and they discover the little boy Daniel has died from the gunshot. Maggie later translated what the men were saying: "Give us the camera" Maggie and Gary return to the states and Maggie tries to pretend she is fine. Jim returns to ACN around the same time to find Maggie completely rattled. She is prescribed antidepressant by a psychotherapist, but she does not take them. She insists that she is in a clear state of mind and can be an accountable witness to the events concerning their research of Operation Genoa. Though it is in the episode, it is unclear when it happened but at some point between her return to Africa and deposition, Maggie cuts all of her blonde hair off and dyes the remaining bits red. News Night with Will McAvoy It is now the beginning of 2012 and the events of the episode take place during the hour of the show. It is revealed that due to the trauma from her experience in Africa, Maggie has become promiscuous, dependent on alcohol, and emotionally bitter and unpleasant (especially toward Jim). Despite coming into work drunk on presumably numerous occasions, she is successful in hiding her alcohol dependency from her colleagues. She stresses to Jim (who eventually catches on) that as long as it has no effect on her work performance, he should stay out of her business. However, she screws up the tape cut down of the Trayvon Martin/911 call which she realizes after its airing, requiring Will to make an on-air apology. Afterward, Maggie reveals to Jim that the reason for her going out to bars and finding men is because she is still sometimes afraid to sleep alone. Behind the scenes Maggie is a major character in the first season. She is played by starring cast member Alison Pill and debuts in the series pilot "We Just Decided To". Appearances Category:Characters Category:News Night staff